"Some InP mation 
For Mother" 



How One Man Answered 

the Questions of a Child 

About Reproduction 



By JOHN PALMER GAVIT 

Managing Editor of The New York Evening Post 



SECOND EDITION 

Single Copies, 15 Cents 
Special Rates in Quantities 



New York Evening Post Co. 
20 Vesey St., New York 



"Some Inf mation 
For Mother" 



How One Man Answered 

the Questions of a Child 

About Reproduction 



By JOHN 


PALMER GAVIT 




Managing Editor of The New York Evening 


Post 




& 




SECOND EDITION 




The 


Nation Press 
1916 




) ) 






*r 



Copyright, 1914 

Copyright, 1916 

By John Palmer Gavit 

All Rights Reserved 



Mb 

-1 4316 



CI.A434216 



(( 



Some Infmation 
for Mother" 




T was evident to the Iconoclast 
as he came up from the lake 
with his big string of fish and 
seated himself upon the steps 
of the veranda, that he had 
interrupted a conversation out 
of the ordinary. Nobody no- 
ticed his highly satisfactory catch. The Kinder- 
gartner rose as if about to leave, but sat down 
again. There was a space of somewhat em- 
barrassed silence. Then the Professor, in his 
most impressive tone, resumed: 

"Ignorance undoubtedly is the main, though 
by no means the only, root of the trouble. 
Every child should be taught at least the rudi- 
ments of the truth about himself or herself; 
yet in a way so gentle, so gradual, and so 
tactful that there may be no shock; no rude 
violation of its natural reserve and delicacy." 

u For my part," said the Neighbor, flushed 
with the consciousness of trespassing upon 



ground usually forbidden, "I am quite willing 
to give my little boy this information, but I 
do not know when, or in what language. I 
know nothing of medicine." Of course, she 
meant physiology. 

"Oh, but you know about the flowers !" 
broke in the Kindergartner, in that tone that 
kindergartners use. "The beautiful story of 
the fertilization of the blossoms ! The bees — " 

"No, I don't. And besides, the fertilization, 
as you call it, that I want to tell him about 
isn't done by bees." 

"I never could understand," interposed the 
Iconoclast, "why there should be all this intense 
and even hysterical 'delicacy' about the teach- 
ing of sex truth to children. You tell your 
boys and girls about their teeth and ears and 
eyes; you make no secret of their digestion, 
or of the operation of heart and lungs. You 
even teach these things to them together in 
school. But— ye gods and little fishes!- — the 
minute you come to these most important 
functions of all, you stick your heads in the 
sand like ostriches, and act as if it were some- 
thing to be ashamed of. If I had my way — " 

"Surely," gasped the Neighbor, "you would 
not teach such things in public!" 

"Well, I don't know. As far as I am con- 



cerned, I would teach about sex just as I would 
teach about chemistry, or spelling. But I under- 
stand well enough that I am a barbarian. So I 
take it from your own point of view, and say 
that I don't care when or how you teach your 
little boy or your little girl about this thing, 
if you only tell it frankly — the plain, ordinary 
truth, in a plain, ordinary and perfectly shame- 
less way." 

u Yes, but the when and the how are every- 
thing," protested the Neighbor. 

"When the child is old enough to ask, he's 
old enough to have an honest answer." 

"You must conserve the innate delicacy of 
the child," insisted the Professor. 

"I told my little girl," said the Professor's 
wife, who thus far had been silent, "that this 
subject must be a secret, a beautiful secret, 
between us, and that she must never speak of 
it to any one but me." 

"And you told her—" 

"All that I thought good for her. I told 
her in an allegorical way, about the flowers, 
and the pollen, and the bees, and how the 
seeds formed." 

"Beautiful!" softly exclaimed the Kinder- 
gartner. 

"How did she take it?" the Neighbor asked. 

S 



"She seemed interested, and asked if babies 
came from bees." 

"To which you replied — " 

"I promised to tell her more when she was 
older.' 1 

"And meanwhile she is to keep the story 
of the flowers and the bees and the pollen as 
a 'beautiful secret' between herself and you?" 
The Iconoclast's voice trembled with some sup- 
pressed emotion. 

"Yes, I prefer that she should not talk about 
these matters with anybody but her mother." 

The Iconoclast rose with a sigh, saying: 

"Well, I've got to clean these fish or you 
won't have anything for dinner." 



AT THE back of the house was the big 
stump of a tree, with a wide board across 
the top, upon which it was the custom to clean 
the fish of which the lake furnished an inex- 
haustible supply. He laid upon it one of the 
largest, felt the edge of his knife with his 
thumb, and leaned over to the task. 

"What are you doing?" The Professor's 
little girl ran across the sand to see. 

"Cleaning these fish for your dinner, Prin- 
cess." 



"May I watch?" 



"Certainly, if you'll keep your fingers out of 
the way of this sharp knife," 

The fish lay open and flat, and the knife- 
point was lifting a great mass of yellow-pink 
roe. 

"What's that?" 

"That is called roe; it's made up of thou- 
sands of eggs." 

"Eggs! How funny! Do fish lay eggs?" 

"Oh, yes, indeed. All animals — " the Icono- 
clast checked himself. 

"Where do they lay 'em?" 

"In different places, and different ways. Some 
fish even make nests ; I've seen them. But most 
fish, I think, go up into the shallow water of 
streams, and lay their eggs on the pebbles of 
the bottom." 

"Do they sit on them, like a hen? How can 
they — such a lot of them?" 

"No, the eggs just lie there in the water until 
they hatch. The mother-fish doesn't need to 
keep them warm, as birds do. She just goes 
on about whatever business she has." 

"And never cares what happens to her 
eggs?" 

"I don't think she worries much about 
them." 



Another fish was slit open and laid upon the 
board. 

"Oh, what's that — that white thing? That 
isn't eggs, like the other, is it? It's about the 
same shape and size." 



HP HE Iconoclast stood up and reasoned with 
■*• himself. How far was he at liberty to 
go in answering these simple questions? Was 
it his business to abash this eager curiosity? 

"No," he said at last, "that is not eggs. 
That is what is called milt." 

"What's it for?" 

"Well, you see, this is a father-fish. The 
eggs have to have this milt put on them, or 
they won't hatch. So after the mother-fish 
lays the eggs on the pebbles at the bottom of 
the stream, the father-fish comes along, and 
spreads this milt through the water over the 
eggs." 

"How does he know where to find them?" 

"I don't know. That is one of the secrets 
that the fish keep to themselves. Anyway, the 
father-fish seems to know where to look for 
them." 

"S'posin' he didn't want to lay the milt on 
the eggs, or put it somewhere else. Then there 

8 



wouldn't be any little fish hatched out, would 
there?" 

"No, there wouldn't. The eggs would just 
lie there and die. But the father-fish some- 
how seems to like to do it." 

"I s'pose he thinks of the cunning little fish 
that will hatch out if he does his part. And 
then he goes away with the mother-fish and 
they decide what to name their children." 

"Very likely," laughed the Iconoclast. 

The little girl was silent for a time, watch- 
ing the deft knife at its dissection; speaking 
only to identify the father-fish and mother-fish 
as they came in turn, and laying them side by 
side in couples. 

"I s'pose there are father-birds and mother- 
birds?" 

"Oh, yes." 

"Do the father-birds have milt too?" 

The Iconoclast straightened up and rubbed 
the hinge in his back. Cleaning fish is weary 
work, when you have to stoop so far. He 
looked away at the wooded hills across the 
lake. 

"I asked you a question. It isn't polite not 
to answer. Do father-birds have milt?" 

He looked down into the big, clear eyes of 
the eager little face under the blowing curls. 

"Yes^, father-birds have milt." 



"And after the mother-bird lays her eggs in 
the nest, she goes away and lets the father-bird 
come in to put the milt on them. Of course, 
if he didn't, the eggs wouldn't hatch. " She 
said this with an air of conviction. 

Then the Iconoclast decided something once 
for all; stooped over the fish-cleaning again, 
and said: 

"It isn't quite like that with birds. The 
father-bird puts the milt on the egg before the 
mother-bird lays it." 

"But I don't see — oh, do you mean while 
it is in the mother-bird's body?" 
"Just so." 

She was thoughtful for a moment. From 
the corner of his eye he could see that her 
brow was knit. Here was a mechanical prob- 
lem. He wondered how he would put it. 

"Well, that explains something!" she cried 
at last. "I do believe I've seen them doing 
it. Do you know, I never dreamed of it. I 
thought they were always fighting." 

"They were not fighting." 

The little girl was thinking again. Presently 
she asked: 

"Did you ever see a cat's egg?" 
"No, I can't say I ever did." 
I've always wondered about that. I asked 

10 



UT», 



my mother and she said cats were very secret 
about their eggs." 

"Oh, she said that,, did she?" 

"Yes, and she said I mustn't ask her any 
more about it. You don't mind my asking you, 
do you? I'm really very much int'rested." 

"Not at all. I'm glad to tell you anything 
I know." 

"Well, then, tell me this: Where do cats 
lay their eggs? I'd like awfully to see a cat's 
egg." 

"You're not likely to see one. In the first 
place, it would be very tiny — too small to see 
without a microscope, and — " 

"But a kitten isn't so very tiny, and I've 
seen them lots of times, just brand-new, fresh- 
hatched." 

"Ah, but you didn't see the kitten fresh- 
hatched. The cat's egg never leaves the 
mother-cat's body at all. The nest where the 
kitten hatches out is inside of the mother-cat." 

THE child's eyes were wide with wonder. 
"Then the teeny-weeny little new-hatched 
kitten just stays there in the mother till it's 
big enough to be let out?" 
"Exactly." 
"Isn't that lovely?" 

11 



The Iconoclast is regarded as a hardened 
person; but he had not found voice when she 
added: 

"I see now why the mother-cat is so fond 
of her kitten — she's been it's nest so long!" 

"I expect that's one of the reasons." 

"Of course, the mother-fish wouldn't care 
so much; there are so many of hers, and she 
just leaves them any old way and swims off. 
Maybe she forgets where she put 'em. The 
mother-bird cares more, I s'pose, because she's 
been sitting on the eggs. But there are two, 
three, four, five kittens sometimes. Our cat 
had six, once. Are they all in there at once 
in the nice, warm, cosy mother-nest?" 

"Yes, all in there together." 
"How can she tell when they're big enough 
to be let out?" 

"That's a thing nobody seems to know — 
except the mother-cat. She knows when the 
right time comes." 

"I guess they must get pretty heavy. They 
do let them out too soon, sometimes; the ones 
I've seen didn't have their eyes open yet. I 
should think she would keep them till they 
could see and walk around." 

"They never have their eyes open when they 
are born." 

12 



"So that's what we call being born ! It's just 
being let out of the mother-nest?" 

"That is exactly what it is." 

"And is it just the same with dogs, and little 
calves, and horses, and elephants, and — " 

"Just the same." 

Silence again. Then: 

"But there is one thing I don't exactly under- 
stand. After little birds hatch, the mother- 
bird brings them worms and things. How do 
the little kittens and elephants be fed in the 
mother-nest before they are born?" 

"While they are in there they are fed from 
the mother's own body." 

"No wonder she loves them!" cried the little 
girl. "Of course, she knows they're in there?" 

"Oh, yes, she—" 

"Why, yes, she must. She'd remember when 
the eggs were fixed so they'd hatch. Of course; 
that was a foolish question. And they feed 
from their mother after they are born, too; 
I've seen them — all the cunning little kittens, 
nursing in a row." 

"Yes, that is one of the differences in animals. 
The little fishes have to hustle for themselves 
right away after they are hatched. And the 
little birds do not nurse; the mother-bird, and 

13 



the father-bird, too, usually, bring them food 
in their bills, and they stay in the nest until 
they get their feathers and their wings are 
strong enough to fly. 

"But all the warm-blooded animals bring 
forth their little ones like the cat, and nurse 
them until they are able to be weaned, as it 
is called; that is, to eat something besides the 
mother's milk." 

"Weaned? Why, they wean babies — I heard 
my mother say so. Is that what it means ?" 

"That is what it means." 

"But I thought babies got their milk from 
bottles! I know I certainly did." 

"Sometimes that is necessary; but most hu- 
man mothers nurse their babies, when they are 
able to, just as cats do." 

"And do babies come from eggs, and hatch 
out in the mother-nest, like the warm-blooded 
ainimals?" 

"They do. Men and women and children 
are warm-blooded animals. The baby stays in 
the mother-nest until the time comes for it to 
be born, just as the kitten does." 

"Isn't that beautiful? Now, why didn't my 
mother tell me that when I asked her? She 
said it was a terrible secret, and that I mustn't 
talk about it to anybody else but her, and then 

14 



she told me about flowers and pollen and bees, 
and I got all mixed up. I couldn't see what 
bees had to do with babies — except to sting 



em." 



"They have nothing to do with babies, as 
you say," the Iconoclast said, "but a great deal 
to do with flowers. If you will just remember 
that the pollen that the bees carry from one 
blossom to another is for exactly the same pur- 
pose as the milt of the father-fish, you will 
understand better." 

"Do you mean that the flower-seeds wouldn't 
grow without the pollen that the bee brings?" 
"That is it, Princess." 

The little girl's brow was knit again, and 
there was real trouble in her voice as she said : 

"It seems funny to me that my mother didn't 
know how babies come. She certainly had 

me!" 

Suddenly she started away toward the house, 
saying : 

"I thank you very much. You'll have to 
'xcuse me, now; I've simply got to give my 
mother some inf'mation!" 



15 



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